Southern Baptist Sissies, a play about four gay men in a Texas Southern Baptist Church, is now running at The Weekend Theater in Little Rock. Director Ralph Hyman says the first act is a comedy and the second is a drama/tragedy that ends with hopefulness.
Hyman tells the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that “it talks about how the church, unfortunately, teaches children who are gay to hate themselves.”
Playwright Del Shores is said to have based the play on personal experiences.
I have such deep scars from my Southern Baptist childhood, which also left me a self-loathing gay man. We all know what happened to self-loathing gay men in the 70s and 80s, AIDS. I don’t blame my southern Baptist upbringing for my disease. I was mighty ignorant in my early 20s, and should have been paying attention. I numbed pain with Jim Beam, Willie Nelson, pills, and weed. Antidepressants work so much better.
I do blame the church’s teachings for the enormous pain, confusion, depression, and suicide attempts endured in the closeted rural isolation of my childhood. I almost didn’t live long enough to ignorantly face AIDS. The rage within is still there, just below the surface. It's sometime pointed at the Southern Baptist Church, and sometimes pointed at myself.
There is plenty of comedy to be had in a play with this subject matter, and Shores has the background (produced three seasons of the Showtime series Queer As Folk) and writing talent (also wrote Sordid Lives) to make me laugh, relax, and be vulnerable during the first act, while ripping open old wounds in the second.
I hear a movie based on the play is in the works as well, with Delta Burke. I look forward to seeing Southern Baptist Sissies. The $14 seat includes a hopeful ending. If not, Vino's across the street may have some Jim Beam. For more info, www.weekendtheater.org
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